The present invention relates to hinges, and more particularly to continuous hinges and methods to align and adjust hinged objects for optimal clearance and operation.
When a hinge is mounted to objects to be hinged with respect to each other, care must be taken to ensure proper alignment and mounting of the hinge and hinged objects. Doors that are in need of repair are often retrofitted with various types of hinges that are known for their increased strength among other factors. Hinges that are applied in the field are often installed under less than ideal conditions. To complete a quality field installation of a door, for example, the door must be maintained in proper alignment with the frame, requiring a prescribed set of clearances at each side of the door and at its top and bottom edges. If this is not done, the door may potentially rub against the frame or drag on the threshold, increasing the difficulty for persons entering or leaving the building as well as imposing additional stress and wear on all of the door hardware, such as locksets and automatic door closers.
Uniform industry standards for the design of butt hinges have been applied to doors and frames in the form of cutouts, or receiving mortises, that allow butt hinges to be fastened directly into these recesses. However, not all of the door alignment requirements are assured when the doors and frames are manufactured. Sometimes, particularly if the doors and frames arrive at the job site from different manufacturing sources, the cutouts or recesses may not correspond, creating misalignment problems that can affect the operating clearances. Also, the installation of frames can be affected by improperly dimensioned or misaligned wall openings, resulting in frame distortion that contributes to door misalignment.
To install continuous hinges such as disclosed in my U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,092,870; 3,402,422; 4,976,008; 4,996,739; 4,999,878; 4,999,879; 4,999,880; 5,001,810; 5,201,902; 5,778,491 and 5,991,975, all of which are incorporated herein by reference, the installer typically must carefully remove the damaged hinges and mark and drill for the new fastener locations on both the door and the frame as best possible. This especially pertains to those types of hinges that are applied to the exterior faces of doors and frames when they are in need of hinge replacement. All too often, when transferring the new screw hole locations from the continuous hinge to the door and frame, the hinge can shift, or the drill point can slide from the mark, contributing to poor door alignment when the installation is complete. Such fastener hole misplacements occur with even greater frequency when large holes are required for through-bolting, especially when hidden internal door reinforcements are encountered by the installer.
Hinges that are continuous (i.e., hinges that attach a door to its frame or to another door for a substantial part of the length of the joined portions) may take various forms, including hinges which are formed from sheet metal by stamping and curling “knuckles”, or essentially cylindrical receptacles, along the length of a strip which will accept a longitudinal pin, wire or rod. The knuckles are separated by spaces of generally equal length so that the opposing knuckles of a second hinge member may be interposed between the knuckles of the first hinge member and joined by the pin, wire or rod. Such hinges are commonly known as “piano” hinges, and are used, in addition to pivoting the covers for piano keyboards, for building athletic lockers, furniture, equipment enclosures and for building architectural doors and frames, or wherever a secure hinging system is required. My U.S. Pat. No. 5,991,975, which is incorporated herein by reference, describes a hinge of this type, which has been improved by a variety of means to mechanically articulate a covering member to enhance its appearance as well as to improve its protection from environmental deterioration and other hazards.
Another form of continuous hinge, described in my U.S. Pat. No. 3,402,422, which is incorporated herein by reference, teaches a continuous hinge with two hinge members rotatably mounted about the edges of a C-shaped, elongated clamp that defines an internal channel. Gear segments at the edges of the hinge members are meshed with each other to pivotally connect the hinge members. One or more thrust bearings disposed in recesses of both hinge members prevent relative movement of the hinge members along their axes of rotation. The bearings occupy most of the cross-sectional spaces within the clamp and have bearing surfaces on their ends that are generally parallel to, abut, and support the recess end surfaces of the hinge member recesses. Another configuration of a continuous hinge is taught in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,999,879, which is incorporated herein by reference, that discloses hinge members with gear segments meshed with the clamp instead of, or in addition to, being meshed with each other.
Butt hinges as well as continuous hinges can be improved by providing alignment flexibility when attaching the hinges so that the door will have adequate clearance within its frame or other surrounding enclosure. One of the more difficult steps in continuous hinge or butt hinge installation in the field is the proper sizing of the door and frame in relation to each other and the proper marking and preparation of the fastener holes in a way which will insure the alignment of the door to its frame when the installation is complete. Currently, the installation of continuous hinges is dependent upon the skills of the individual installer. While individual butt or mortise hinges are typically fitted into cutouts with pre-threaded bolt holes prepared in both the door and the frame at their respective factories, discrepancies in manufacturing tolerances and machinery often result in doors that do not provide acceptable clearances. When this occurs, the aesthetics may suffer, weather or sound sealing may be inadequate, or the door and frame may actually interfere with each other as the door is cycled. The fixed locations of butt hinge screw attachments may actually inhibit proper positional adjustment of the door.
Continuous hinges are more frequently applied to the unprepared surfaces of doors and frames which offer little to assist in their alignment. Repair work in particular, where continuous hinges are used to overcome conditions in which conventional hinges have failed, is more dependent upon the skill level of the installer because the working environment as well as the condition of the door and frame components may be less than ideal, largely because the doors themselves may have suffered damage when their hinges failed and because the work must often be completed very quickly with a minimum of installation tools. Unless all of the fastener locations for a continuous hinge are carefully marked and drilled, the door will interfere with or rub against the frame following installation or shortly thereafter.
A method of marking, adjusting and positioning the height of a door and the tools for accomplishing a simplified continuous hinge installation is disclosed in my invention disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,732,409, which is incorporated herein by reference, in which a continuous hinge is mounted to a rail which has been aligned and affixed to the hinged object using tools and methods that allow for the vertical adjustment of the hinged object during or after the installation.
Despite the improvements that the aforementioned teachings provide, there still remains further need for an improved hinge and method of installation to provide even greater flexibility and ease in adjusting a door to properly align it with its frame under a wide variety of frame and door conditions encountered in the field. There is a further need for an improved hinge and method of installation that reduces reliance on the skills of the installer to allow installers of various skill levels to properly align and hang a door.